


Rainbow Road

by pikestaff (pikaslew)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, DA Prompt Exchange, Explicit Language, Fluffy Angst, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fill, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 14:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikaslew/pseuds/pikestaff
Summary: Anders inherits Karl's house but he's having a difficult time bringing himself to actually move in.  Things change thanks to the help of a little box he found in the basement and his magnificently ripped new neighbor, one Garrett Hawke.





	Rainbow Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [un-shit-yourself (fenix_down)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenix_down/gifts).



> This is a fic for un-shit-yourself who won the Dragon Age Prompt Exchange's recent follower contest. The prompt was [this one right here](http://dapromptexchange.tumblr.com/post/159421608809/anders-inherited-his-house-from-karl-as-his-next) and I kiiiind of went off prompt a bit (or a lot) but what can I say, I love USY (YES YOU, I LOVE YOU MY FRIEND) and wanted to customize it a bit.

It had been a few months and Anders still hadn’t moved in.

He didn’t like how quiet it was.

Oh, he’d tried to hype himself up to move in. He tried often. But it always unsettled him— the silence. The loneliness.

Karl simply _not being there_.

It made the entire place seem empty. Eerie. Wrong.

So he put off the move for as long as possible until his friends started wondering and asking, and finally he realized no, no he had to do this, so that particular day he was there taking a look around to see what, exactly, he needed to bring in order to finally take the leap.

That was his reasoning, at least.

In truth he was trying, yet again, to see if he could finally bring himself to finally do this and move into Karl’s place when Karl wasn’t there and never would be again.

Everything was just as they had left it when they had last been together. There was furniture, so Anders wouldn’t have to worry about that, but he didn’t like looking at it for too long because it always reminded him of the two of them cuddled on the couch watching Netflix together and that brought back bad memories.

He pulled himself away from the living room and did a quick sweep through the place. Unfortunately, it seemed that everywhere he went there were little reminders of Karl. The coffeemaker he used in the kitchen. His shampoo in the bathroom. And then of course, there was the bedroom and the bed that they had shared so many times…

Nope. He didn’t have the mental fortitude to deal with that bit today. Instead, he headed down into the basement. It was mostly old storage in there; nothing that he and Karl had used in their day-to-day lives. It would be easier to start there, he figured. Less baggage was good. Less baggage was always good. Right?

The basement, as it turned out, was a mess. Boxes upon boxes were piled in corners and it was clear from the layers of dust that most of them hadn’t been touched in years. Anders opened the box nearest him, out of curiosity, and was greeted with old holiday decorations. Another box was filled with magazines, and another with VHS tapes.

Well. Nothing here seemed to be particularly vital, so he’d go through this all another time. Anders turned and was about to leave when he noticed a box that was partially open out of the corner of his eye. This caught his attention, as all the other boxes that he could see were folded shut.

He approached the box and peeked in…. and was not even _remotely_ expecting to see the Super Nintendo, a couple of controllers and several dozen games inside.

Anders couldn’t help but grin despite himself. He’d had one of these as a kid. He played it a lot. ...granted, his family was poor and they only had two games, but still. Why hadn’t Karl told him? They could have set it up in the living room and played Super Mario Kart or something. That had been his favorite as a kid.

The thought of Karl, though, was enough to make the smile fade from Anders’ face, and he sighed. He needed to do something besides mope. Apparently moving in wasn’t going to happen today.

He turned and headed to the door to go back upstairs, but he paused partway, looked back… and then turned and grabbed the box of old games.

Yeah, he’d look through this later, he decided, as he set the box down on a table

Anders was walking back out to his car when he heard barking, followed by a “Hey!”

He turned and saw a man standing near the house next door. He had a scruffy beard and a gigantic, slobbery brown dog by his side. The man grinned at him. “You just moving in?”

“Uh…” Anders didn’t want to say that he had been considering moving in and kept changing his mind at the last moment. “Sort of. Yes,” he said.

The man nodded. “I’m new, too,” he said. “Just moved into my place last week.”

 _So he hadn’t known Karl, then,_ Anders thought to himself, but the man was talking again.

“I’m Garrett Hawke, by the way. And you are?”

“Anders.”

“Did you need help moving in? I am totally down for that. I don’t have anything else going on right now.”

Anders wanted to say no. He really did. But deep down, he also figured that this might be the kick in the ass that he needed to stop grieving and actually move in to the place. “Uhh, yeah, sure,” he said. “Just, uh… let me go home and grab my stuff really quick.”

Garrett actually finger gunned him. “Sure thing. I’ll be here when you get back.”

So Anders got into his car and drove home. He didn’t have many belongings, but fortunately what he _did_ have was already boxed up. Those boxes had all been sitting by his door for several weeks now, waiting for him to actually make the decision to move. Well, now he had, and he tried not to get too depressed about the whole thing as he loaded the boxes into his car and then drove back to the house.

Garrett and his dog were wrestling on the lawn. _Literally_ wrestling. _Maker, the man’s got arms like tree trunks_ , Anders thought to himself. He looked like a lumberjack. _Don’t stare_ , Anders thought to himself as he parked and stepped outside.

Garrett and the dog ran up to him. “Heeey,” said Garrett. “That was quick.”

“I don’t have a whole lot,” Anders explained.

“Really? Well, I guess that makes it easier to move on in,” Garrett moved to the back of Anders’ car and Anders popped the trunk. Then they each took a box— actually, Garrett took two, because the man was fucking ripped— and they headed into the house.

As soon as they were inside, Garrett was making numerous approving comments about the place and its interior decoration. “This place is great,” he said. “It’s already got furniture and everything. Were you expecting all this when you snagged it?”

“Um, kind of,” said Anders. This was all getting very awkward, but he didn’t want to say anything— not when Garrett was being so helpful, and not when the man was bending over to put down boxes and basically shoving his ass in Anders’ face as he did so. Anders looked away. _Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare…_

“Oh man!” Garrett said suddenly, and Anders turned back to look at him and realized he’d set the box down on the table next to the box of Super Nintendo games. “Oh shit. Oh holy fucking shit. Are these yours?” Garrett reached into the box and started pulling out games. “Holy fuck. Is this motherfucking Battletoads? Oh man, and fucking Uniracers?” He set the two games down and pulled out another. “Holy shit. Final Fantasy. Oh man. Listen, I’ve got to tell you. When I first played this game as a kid I had this massive crush on Sabin. Can you blame me, though? Guy suplexed a fucking train. Right? I tell you what, I wish I was the train, if you know what I mean.”

Anders had no idea what Garrett was going on about, but he nodded and smiled and made vague noises of approval. He wasn’t sure how to broach the fact that none of these were his own games. Eventually he decided it would be awkward if he mentioned that now, when they had just met, so he continued nodding and playing along and hoped the subject would eventually change.

But it didn’t, because apparently Garrett was incredibly huge into Super Nintendo games. They walked back out to the car to collect another few boxes, and Garrett chattered away the entire time while his dog was on his heels. “Maker’s fucking breath you know what game was fucking great? Fucking Super Metroid. Do you have that one?”

“I uh…”

“And Donkey Kong Country. You know what blows my fucking mind? Growing up I thought the second one was called Diddy Kong’s Quest but it turns out that this entire time it was called Diddy’s Kong Quest. Like, the apostrophe is on the first word. What the fuck, right? You played that one though, right? With the fucking roller coaster and shit?”

“Mm-hmm.” Anders lied. He was feeling increasingly out of place, but still didn’t want to say anything.

“Alright, I’ve gotta know,” said Garrett, as they went back inside the house with their boxes. “What’s your favorite Super Nintendo game?”

Finally, Anders could at least truthfully answer this one. “Super Mario Kart,” he said. He didn’t mention that that was one of the only two games he’d had as a kid.

“Oh, shit man,” Garrett’s whole face lit up. “What a great game. I liked to play Bowser. Guy was huge and covered in spikes and could fucking breathe fire, how sick is that. Rainbow Road was the best track. Am I right?”

Anders couldn’t help but smile. “Rainbow Road was the best damn track in the game.”

“Fucking right,” said Garrett. “It had the best music too. Oh man. I’m so glad you’ve got all those games, man. I’d almost forgotten all about them.”

Garrett was still talking about games as they finished bringing boxes in, and then he volunteered to help unbox and sort things, and as Anders was beginning to find him terribly endearing, he accepted his help. It… _really_ didn’t hurt that Garrett was built like a tank and Anders kept taking surreptitious glances at his arms. And legs. And his—

— damn, he stood back up.

“Listen,” said Garrett suddenly. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome, so let me know if this is weird or something. But what do you say we hook up that Nintendo to your TV and play some games? We can order pizza.”

He was like a puppy as he asked and Anders didn’t know how he could ever turn him down. “I don’t know if that Nintendo works,” he admitted.

“Nah man, we’ll figure it out. Here.” Garrett carefully took the console out of the box and then leaned down in front of the TV to hook it up.

_Oh, there we go. The ass. That’s the other really nice bit._

Anders felt weird, though, crushing on someone this soon after Karl, and he looked away again as Garrett fiddled with the wires. He felt, somehow, that he shouldn’t be _allowed_ to have something nice again so soon.

And he could almost hear Karl chiding him for it.

“Oh, shit yes!” That was Garrett’s exclamation as the intro to Super Mario World popped up on screen and he sat back on his heels. “See, I knew we’d get it working.” He stood up and turned to face Anders, his eyes sparkling. “I know exactly which game we’re going to play first. Fucking Super Mario Kart.” He went to the table and began digging through the box, making noises of delight as he unearthed more of his favorite games— “Killer Instinct holy shit! Oh man fucking Tetris Attack!”-- but after a while he stopped. “Huh,” he said. “You don’t have Super Mario Kart.”

 _Oh_. “I, uh…” Anders fumbled for words. “I… must’ve gotten rid of that one.” He shrugged, and hoped he didn’t sound too obviously bothered.

Unfortunately, he must have, because Garrett turned and looked over at him, his eyes concerned. “You alright?”

“I…” _shit_. It had been hard enough just being in the house without Karl, and now he didn’t know how much longer he could keep it together. Especially since Garrett was being so friendly and so forthright.

No, he was going to tell him the truth.

“I, uh, actually have to admit something,” said Anders, and he looked away. “Those aren’t my games. They’re um… this house used to belong to my boyfriend. He passed away and… left it all to me.” He looked back at Garrett and shrugged.

“Oh. Oh man.” Garrett’s face softened. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks,” said Anders. He attempted a smile, although he didn’t know how well it came out. “Anyways… those games are his. I didn’t know he had them. I only had two Super Nintendo games when I was a kid. My family didn’t have a whole lot. Not after my father left.”

Anders didn’t know why he was saying all of this to a stranger, but Garrett was sympathetic. “I’m really sorry,” he said genuinely. “If I had known… well, I wouldn’t have gone digging through all his stuff.”

“It’s alright. You didn’t know,” said Anders. “Honestly, talking about this all now… it helps. I’ve had it bottled up for a while. You know?”

“Mm-hmm,” said Garrett. “You know, I lost my dad a few years back. So not to make it about me or anything, but if you ever want to talk to someone, well, I’m available.” He looked over at the TV. Super Mario World was still running. “Anyways,” he said. “I, uh, won’t stick around and bother you if—”

“Wait,” said Anders. “You don’t have to leave.”

“You sure?” Garrett asked him. “I know this has gotta be tough for you.”

Anders thought about it for a moment. It _was_ tough, he couldn’t deny that. His memories wandered back to how he and Karl had sat on that couch that they were standing next to and watched Netflix on that very TV that Garrett had hooked the Nintendo up to. And thinking about it now, he didn’t know if he could bring himself to do that again, with someone else, so soon.

But… games were something different.

Anders walked over to the table with the box of games and idly looked through them. “Hey,” he said. “You know what the other game I had was?”

“What?”

Anders held up Street Fighter II and a second controller.

Garrett grinned. “Now _that_ is what I’m fucking talking about!”

They sat on the couch together while Garrett began extolling the virtues of playing Guile and for the first time in a long time, Anders started to think that maybe things would be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not have played an assload of Super Nintendo as a ten year old.
> 
> \---
> 
> http://pikestaff.tumblr.com


End file.
